PW 'just had routine checks'
2006-10-13 17:13
Cape Town - Former state president P W Botha is to be discharged from the George Medi-Clinic on Saturday morning after undergoing what the hospital says are routine checks.
The hospital said in a statement that Botha, 90, was admitted at 11:45 on Friday for a routine check-up.
"Mr Botha will be kept overnight for routine tests to be run and will be discharged tomorrow morning," the statement said.
Botha was head of government, first as prime minister then as state president, from 1978 to 1989.
Though he walks with a stick, he has retained much of the forceful personality that earned him the nickname "the big crocodile" in his political heyday.
He lives at his Wilderness lagoon-side home Die Anker with his second wife Barbara.
Botha was elected MP for George in the landslide 1948 election that brought the National Party to power, and was head of government through the most turbulent years of the anti-apartheid struggle.
He was seen out of the presidency in 1989 by F W de Klerk after suffering a light stroke earlier that year.
The George Medi-Clinic describes itself as a 160-bed multidisciplinary private hospital.
- SAPA